Marvel's master of cosmic magic

Chapter 502

Rowan Mercer didn’t bother with grand speeches. He stepped forward like someone who’d already decided how the scene would end.

The convoy’s leader—an obvious fire-mutant—turned a slow, contemptuous grin toward him. Sand and pyramids stretched in every direction; waste and ruin where civilizations once stood. "You got lost, tree?" the mutant snarled. "This is my turf. New prey, huh? Good."

Rowan let the wind die at his feet. He tapped the ground once; grass unfurled around him, saplings shooting up in neat rows, ringed like sentries around the convoy. The sudden green made the leader blink.

"Release my teacher and his friends," Rowan said. "Then maybe I’ll let you go."

The leader laughed and barked an order to a squat, frog-faced thug perched on a hood. "Toad—handle him."

Toad’s tongue lashed out like a whip, aiming to snare Rowan in barbed, sticky coils. The tongue might have been fast—fast enough for most things—but not for magic. A blue sigil flared at Rowan’s command and struck Toad mid-lunge. The beam leapt, arced, and hammered into half the convoy; iron teeth locked in place, arms froze—every soldier struck by Rowan’s binding chain was immobilized.

These weren’t anonymous raiders. They were refugees and exiles from countless timelines—living coordinates. Rowan could not, and would not, slaughter them. He detained them instead, slipping them cleanly into a pocket of his spatial store for later.

The fire-mutant brightened and drew heat into his palm, fashioning a serpent of flame that roared toward Rowan like a hound. Rowan inhaled, then opened his mouth. The spectral dragon vanished into his throat as if swallowed by a well. He spat it back out—now braided with three colors of flame— and sent it barrelling at its maker.

The leader smirked. "You think fire can hurt me? I eat fire."

He tried to turn the dragon back, to master it, but something in Rowan’s weave blocked him. The three-colored dragon ignored the leader’s control. It surged and engulfed him, stripping away his clothing and his spells without turning him to ash. He survived, humiliated and burned to rags.

Others scrambled for weapons. Rowan merely willed them longer, until their own arms transformed into iron rods and coiled them into restraints. Power is a contest of control; two pyromancers might both command flame, but the stronger will owns the flame. Here, Rowan’s mastery outmatched theirs completely.

While the captives hissed and cursed, Rowan tapped the fire-mutant’s mind and read memory flashes—names, faces, the coordinates of the worlds they came from. One by one he moved those men into his pocket-space as well. Then he walked to the cage where Logan and Wade were shackled together.

Logan rolled his eyes at Rowan the moment he stepped up. "Don’t joke, Headmaster. Cut these damned chains."

Wade—Deadpool—grinned, speech always ready. "Oh, little Wolvie, you complain too much. Remember when we used to fight side by side? I miss those simpler days." He flung his head around with a grotesque twist, then turned his head to Rowan: "You can control metal—are you the younger Magneto? His kid?"

"Not that, exactly," Rowan said, smiling as he snapped his fingers. The iron bonds loosened and fell away. Logan popped his knuckles and stood up. The blond man in the cage—who looked uncannily like Captain America but wasn’t—shook himself and stretched.

"Thanks," the blond said, voice rough. "We should move. If Cassandra notices anything odd, she’ll show up herself, and that’s the last thing we need."

"Cassandra?" Deadpool leaned forward, eager. "Who’s Cassandra? Sounds like some spicy ex. Tell me more."

The blond—who went by Blaze—snorted and scowled. He proceeded to inventively insult Cassandra in a stream of profanity so florid that even Deadpool laughed until he nearly choked. Logan only rolled his eyes again. "Steve doesn’t swear like that," he muttered, glancing at the blond’s face and trying not to compare it to someone else he knew.

Rowan spotted a small camera mounted above the cage. He glanced up and gave it a casual wave. The camera whirred and swung, locking onto his face. Blaze went pale and almost collapsed; his bravado evaporated in a heartbeat.

"Not safe to linger," Rowan said. "I’ll take you to a rebel base—people who won’t bow to Cassandra. They’ll hide you, and we’ll gather the coordinates I need."

Logan looked at him once, then at Wade. "We follow you," he said, terse but certain.

Rowan nodded. Freedom first, questions later. He led them away toward the ragged line of trees he’d conjured, toward a shelter of rebels and refugees—toward the map of worlds he was building, one person at a time.